Idris Mootee

The most common complaint among senior executives is that the short-termism of capital markets and the board, along with the need to meet or beat quarterly earnings, is limiting a company to invest in riskier innovation – but many supposedly game-changing innovation projects that align with long-term business strategies are not getting board level approval.

I walked into an event last week in San Francisco to a panel discussing how culture is everything when it comes to innovation. I had to interrupt, because they didn’t really know what they were talking about. Everyone puts an emphasis on culture – understandable, as it’s an easy target to blame as the biggest and single root cause of a company’s inability to reinvent themselves.

It would be a devastating mistake of executives to believe that their organizations are well prepared for what’s coming; that the shift of their current management thinking is just another phase of a cycle of looking outward and inward, or a natural evolution of industries.

Everyone is searching for a game changer. In a dorm, a basement, a bedroom, a lab, a hip co-working office space or a tiny start-up, someone, somewhere is just beginning to really give shape to an idea they’ve had for a while.

Strategists and management consultants love theories. Executives like to consume them, as it allows them to make sense of things. People are now criticizing how Clayton Christensen’s theories about “Disruptions” are now outdated and were created based on incomplete data.

The next digital industrial revolution is already well under way. But it is not happening where technology visionaries or capital markets are generally looking. It is not a revolution just in technology, machinery, software, or speed.

Companies that are facing industry disruptions are bad enough; during these times, leadership faces the most important test – the ability to lead during a crisis. The need of foresight, change and organization design are what true leadership looks like.

Many times when people walk out of a meeting and look happy it is because they have achieved consensus and can now move forward. I always question if this is a sign of a good outcome or not. While having everyone on the same page and sharing the same vision is without question a good thing, arriving on a strategic decision based on consensus may not.

In an interesting conversation with clients this week the discussions were around the question: “should companies plan for the distant future (10 years and beyond) and what is needed to get out of a death spiral where a slow death is in the making?”